Fleeting Dreams
by justira
Summary: A collection of FFX drabbles.
1. Moments of Regret

**Title**: Moments of Regret: Ascending Spiral, Heavy Shit, Old Friends  
**Characters/Pairings**: Auron/Braska/Jecht  
**Rating**: PG-13 for implied naughty  
**Words**: 129 + 178 + 125 = 432  
**Crit/Feedback**: Both are very welcome =)  
**Notes**: A set of three drabbles on Braska, Jecht, and Auron's regrets, or lack thereof.

* * *

**Ascending Spiral**

There is little room for regret.

Little enough room for _him_ in the hollow space inside his robes, the cold distance between people's looks and where he stands, the long laden silences between terse words.

But the pause of a hitched breath, Auron's looks, Jecht's rough laugh, the tangled rush of hands, heat, sweat, swearing, the sharp press of teeth, kisses hard with anger and desperation — those are full of _him_, of _them_.

After, looking up into the boundless sky through the tangle of Jecht's limbs and Auron's hair he thinks he can fill even that void: expectations, Yevon, judgments, spirals (in green eyes), Yuna, Yuna, Yuna.

But Jecht mutters against his ear and Auron's breaths are too even for sleep, and there is no room for regret.

__________________________

**Heavy Shit**

The heavy feeling in his gut isn't any damn regret or guilt or whatever else.

It's like that dry taste before a blitz game — without the adrenaline rush. It's — it's like thinking of Tidus, or Zanarkand. Without the moping. _Auron_ mopes.

It's not _fear_, because he can laugh at fear and yell and swear at it. And lately it's always there, heavy like an anchor pulling him down to this world even as Braska pulls him in and he pushes Auron down. Okay, he laughs then, too (mostly at Auron, the prude), and yells (also at Auron), and swears (he wants to say that's at Auron too, but Braska's got a hell of a way of—).

The heat of fingers dragging uneven trails across the scars on his back, the wet slide of mouths, hard muscle, piercing grey eyes, hot and clear — hell, that's not scary.

He knows what Braska would call that weight, making Auron snort and Jecht laugh. All saintly-like, right before he'd pull the both of them in for another go. He'd call it happiness.

__________________________

**Old Friends**

He is intimately familiar with regret.

When he was a young fool he thought he would die of it.

Ha. Life left him. Regrets did not. Old friends.

But when the old spheres show Tidus his father, Auron remembers Jecht pulling them down on top of him, laughing and threatening them with a sphere Auron would later throw into the Moonflow. And when the pyreflies show Yuna her father, Auron thinks of their last night outside Zanarkand, and Braska reaching up to the sky for a stray pyrefly that wouldn't remember them.

Jecht's son has killed him, and Braska's daughter is performing the Sending. Auron bows his head, and smiles. More a fool than he'd thought, to believe his friends so few and so old. And so unforgiving.

--

_End._

* * *

**A/N**: I had a really hard time with this set. I started writing it on paper, so I had little conception of the word count. I'd originally intended for it to be my usual kind of triple drabble: a set of three 100-word, self-contained drabbles that work well individually and better together. I hope I succeeded on the last three counts, but I failed utterly on the first. I'm very proud of how far I manged to cut these, since they started out at over 200, about 300, and about 150, respectively. I'm still unhappy with a few small parts in each, but I don't think I can cut them down further, and I think altogether they do almost what I wanted them to.

Things I'm pleased with: I think I managed to capture a decent voice for each of the three. Initially I was insecure about this and included their names ("... in Braska's life", "According to Jecht...", "Auron is intimately...") but I decided in the end the voices were strong enough to drop the names, and I think this was a good decision. I hope it was actually well-founded. I'm also proud that I manged to layer in most of the connections I wanted to. I was very worried that the Auron one wouldn't be able to pull off tying them all together and bringing the various themes and ideas to a conclusion, but I think it did okay here. I'm still insecure about it, but I think it could have been worse.

I'm unhappy that I didn't manage to make these true 100-word drabbles, but I think I did well on cutting them down, so I guess I'm not too unhapppy there. There's also a few areas I think turned out a little awkward. Feel free to try and point anything of the sort out -- I'd be interested in seeing if the places you find were the same as mine, and I'm always open to feedback =)


	2. Faith In My Son

**Title**: Faith In My Son  
**Characters/Pairings**: Seymour, Seymour's mother  
**Rating/Spoilers**: PG; Through Zanarkand  
**Words**: 100 even, booyah  
**Feedback**: Crit and any other kind welcome =D  
**Notes**: For the ff_100[lj] FFX/Old wounds challenge. Dedicated to animecrush[lj], her remarkable Seymour fic "More Full of Weeping", and her inspired use of Yeats' "The Stolen Child".

* * *

**Faith In My Son**

When her son returned and her dreams were not confined in stone and memory, she saw his wounds laid bare and raw.

_I died to heal you._

He stood before her: cool, sure, so tall.

She had dreamed here, heard pyreflies echo his whispers as this dank womb nurtured him in her place. Now its dark waters reflected a white lace like old scars.

_You never saw their words and stares carved into your skin._

_Have my death, my fayth, my faith. Heal the world that it may heal you, my son._

--

His mother's power suffused him, and Seymour smiled.

* * *

A/N: I'd been toying with this idea for the entire length of this challenge, and I finally managed to get it down in a way I like. I dislike Seymour a lot as a person, but as a character he is fascinating. This is set when Seymour returns to Baaj Temple to claim the power his mother sought to gift him with her death.


	3. SPACE ADVENTURES

**Title**: SPACE ADVENTURES  
**Characters/Pairings**: Auron, Braska, Jecht, bit of implied slashing of the three.  
**Rating/Warnings**: PG? PG-13? CRACK AU AHOY. Maybe light spoilers?  
**Words**: 152 + 238 + 177 = 567  
**Crit/Feedback**: I lurves it, even on COMPLETE CRACK like this.  
**Notes**: This can be _blamed entirely_ on two people: delladella[lj] for posting the CRACKTASTIC THEME "(HUGE TA-TA's) IN SACE" at ff_100[lj], and bottle_of_shine[lj] for coming up with the idea of SPACE PIRATE JECHT and then not having the time to write it herself. More notes and apologies below.

**Summary**: Auron, Braska, and Jecht, unwitting space pirates searching for the lost planet Zanarkand! Includes ecounters with shoopufs, spittakes, and mention of HUGE TA-TA's IN SPACE!

* * *

**PART I**

The Mi'ihen Gate was closing — too fast, the _Zanarkand_ wasn't going to make it — _damn_ that drunken convict!

"Jecht, I TOLD you not to anger the shoopuf!" Auron roared.

"What?" Jecht yelled back at him over the roar of the straining pyrefly drive and whistle of their air being sucked out through the shoopuf-foot-shaped hole in the _Zanarkand_'s hull. The idiot had a fool, berserk grin plastered over his face, teeth bared and eyes glinting. He was _enjoying_ this!

"The _SHOOPUF_, Jecht!"

"It was menacing me!"

Auron blinked incredulously. "Shoopufs are the most docile creatures in the Spiran aether! They— they—" Auron sputtered. "The _handlers_ are _chasing_ us through the Mi'ihen Star Roads like some kind of _pirates_—"

"We're through!" Braska's voice rang over the comm system.

Jecht whooped. Auron groaned and glared at Jecht, shoving the heavy square of repair metal harder than was entirely necessary to seal it.

__________________________

**PART II**

Jecht paid the Hypello barman and looked around for Auron.

The prude was sulking in a dark corner by the door. Jecht made his way across the crowded floor with their drinks. Auron was too busy moaning and groaning to notice him. Ha.

He gave Auron a hearty slap on the shoulder. "Man, Auron, you need to get out more!"

Jecht laughed as Auron glared at him. He quaffed his drink, then grinned and raised an eyebrow when Auron, after staring at the mug Jecht had shoved under his nose for long enough, uncharacteristically took a sip.

"We're only here because _you_ claimed to have some kind of shady contact from 'back in your blitzing days' and no decent merchants will deal with us now that those shoopuf herders have put out a reward for us. We're _pirates_ because of you. Braska's good name is ruined."

Jecht privately though that in the eyes of these stuffy Spirans there wasn't much ruining left to be done after the former priest had run off with an Al Bhed. These people had the weirdest hang-ups.

He watched Braska make his way back from the opposite side of the saloon, looked back and forth between his captain and Auron making morose doe-eyes at him.

"What you need to do is stop mooning over Braska and get _laid_."

Auron spat his drink out all over the table just as Braska came within range.

__________________________

**PART III**

Braska stared at the ceiling over his bunk in the _Zanarkand_ and smiled.

He could hear what had woken him: Auron and Jecht whispering fiercely below.

"—say such things about our _captain_—"

"—like he would have minded, and besides, some of those barmaids had great knockers, I coulda seen you upstairs and then snuck down to give the gravity generator a kick, I hear it's great in zero—"

"—not the _point_! It's you and your drinking and your—"

"—come off it—"

"—_pirates_—"

He looked again at the strong, study girders of their ship. Al Bhed make, a reconciliation gift from Cid. He hadn't named it until after he decided to leave Bevelle. He'd seen the look in Jecht's eyes when he'd christened it after the lost planet they hoped to find. He'd seen Auron see it, too. And as the whispered argument below him wound to a close...

"Je—mpf!"

"Oh don't be such a prude!"

... he smiled, and slid quietly down out of his bunk.

__

_End._

* * *

**A/N**: SRSLY, BLAME NAY AND DELLA. They started it .

I wrote this to JUST in time catch the posting deadline for the week at ff_100[lj]. I'd been staring at the clock and around half an hour before the deadline, I realized, "_OH MY GOD I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO DO THIS._"

This is my first foray into crack or humour or any kind, mostly because I'm convinced that I fail at both. However, I had a TON of fun with this.

Oh god, I think I might write an entire AU on this theme .


End file.
